February 12, 2003

Children of the Mind Throughout

Children of the Mind

Throughout our recent and possibly continuing bout with Viral Gastroenteritis (You certainly can tell what I've been googling lately, can't you?), there was one concern, paramount in its importance, and constantly in the back of my mind, whether shivering under a mound of blankets in the LazyBoy or perched over the kitchen sink thinking "You know, ranch dressing really doesn't look that much different the second time around."

Was it rapidly growing pile of work assignments? No.

Was it the health of my child, who has had this virus for a week, and who, but for the grace of her birth in a first world country, might have already died of it by now? No.

Was it the health of my pregnant wife and future son, the guarantor of my name? Nooo.

It's nice to know that, even when battling a deadly virus, my essentially shallow nature is strong enough to muddle through. Otherwise I'd be forced to undergo some sort of spiritual awakening, becoming even more of a bore at parties, as I recount my passage through the fire to people desperately looking for a way round me to the chips and dip.

It's was also nice to discover that traffic stayed about the same, mostly due to the the post that keeps on giving, Hoist by Their Own Petain, the joke post I wrote back in January about France and its valiant military history, or lack thereof. Sergeant Stryker picked it up, and Pejmanpundit, and that was great, and then The Corner sent us about 4,000 visitors a week later, which was unexpected, to say the least. I need to start brownnosing Glenn again so I can compare those numbers with the ones an Instalanche brings, now that we've found a counter that actually counts.

The most valuable link over time has been from the Strategy Page, which has sent a couple hundred visitors our way every day since the link was posted a couple of weeks ago. In the "what have you written lately" country of Blogistan, a link that keeps on giving like that is beyond gold and diamonds in value.

And as Josh Heit has noted, the meme keeps spreading. It's been weirdly attractive to football fans, drawing visits from the football discussion boards at LSU, Auburn, Missouri, Texas Tech, and Purdue. I've stopped copying down the urls, but discussion boards at Sissyfight, FuckedCompany, the Free Republic, ESPN, Fark, free-porn site The Stile Project, glocktalk.com, Hot Wheels collectors.com, The Motley Fool, Elite Trader, Baen's bar, battlerifles.com, Graybeard Outdoors, an online site dedicated to hobbyists who make their own armour, as well as several online gaming sites* have also sent people our way, many of whom seemed to think it was intended to be a fair and accurate history. Their reactions were.....pleasing to me.

Back in the first months of Hraka's existence, I wrote"you never knows what's going to happen when you create a meme. It will probably die, but sometimes, rarely, that meme goes on, and the person that created that meme would have made a big difference in the world. It's like being a butterfly. One flap of a butterfly's wing at the right time, and that little gust of air eventually becomes a gigantic storm."

The post certainly hasn't stirred up a storm. If anything, I suppose it might be classified as a gentle zephyr amidst the currents of the world, but it's oddly gratifying to see it still turning over leaves so far away from its origin.

*If for some reason you desire to visit one of the above named yet unlinked sites, and cannot find them on you own, let me know and I'll give you a link**. It's too much to expect a convalescent such as myself to go through the horrible toil necessary to link back to every one of those sites. I get breathless and wheezy just thinking about it.

**Except for the Stile Project. You'll have to find that one yourself. Think of it as a prerequisite for being able to surf one-handed.

Update: Thanks once again to the eagle-eyed Josh, who found it again at the letters to the editor page at World Net Daily (uncredited, i might add). This led me to the next obvious step, googling this sucker.

We're not even in the top 20 results. Also, as this post at Frontpage shows, the language is beginning to change as the meme evolves. And it's getting on some froggie nerves.

First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself.

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